MULTAN, Oct 15: The Anti-Corruption Establishment arrested 127 officials of various departments and recovered Rs40 million concerning NAB and ACE cases during the last month.

This was stated by Punjab ACE director Col Tariq Saddat (retired) at a meeting of the department’s additional directors here on Monday.

He said names of around 278 persons had been included in the Exit Control List in corruption cases. During the last nine months, 769 cases had been submitted to anti-corruption courts and some 200 more cases would be submitted by the end of this year, he said.

He said at least 192 corruption cases against former elected representatives and bureaucrats had been submitted to the NAB, while the fate of 62 was yet to be decided. As many as 275 cases, which were submitted by the provincial monitoring cell, had been finalized, he said.

Mr Tariq said an anti-corruption committee had been constituted under the chairmanship of provincial revenue minister Malik Muhammad Aslam on the directions of Governor Safdar. The committee, he said, had suggested some proposals regarding department’s improvement.

It had been proposed that the department’s budget should be doubled and that the posts for ACE deputy directors and investigation officers be created. Proposal to attach the department to the NAB instead of the local government was also brought to light, he said.